The present invention relates to pest controlling active ingredient delivery systems for use with animals. In particular, a sustained release reservoir containing the active ingredient is provided for fast and reliable deployment on an animal identification tag.
Pest controlling agents may be used in association with animal identification tags or other devices attached directly or indirectly to the body of an animal such as a cow. For example, an ear tag for controlling the hog louse is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,708. The tag of U.S. Pat. No. 3,949,708 has a spiked portion to insert through the ear of the animal, a pocket on a flat planar surface and an insecticide-impregnated pad to be inserted into the pocket. However, such tags have disadvantages since their use may require one to discard a non-insecticidal tag already on the animal and the closure means in the pocket to retain the pad may break which would require replacement again of the entire tag.
Other ear tags have insecticide impregnated throughout the body of the tag itself as described in "Tennessee Farm and Home Science", January - March 1978, Progress Report No. 105; in "The Southwestern Entomologist" Vol. 2, No. 1, March 1977 at pages 8-10; and in the "Journal of Economic Entomology" Vol. 63 (1970) pages 1688-1689; Vol. 70 (1977) pages 72-75, Vol. 71 (1978) pages 764-765, and Vol. 72 (1979) page 215.Again however, using such tags may require removing and discarding non-insecticidal tags already on the animal. Further, when impregnated tags lose effectiveness, a completely new tag must be inserted. Other active ingredient-containing devices for animals are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,756,200 and 3,942,480.